Fall Riding

YamadudeXS650C

Central New York XS650
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I have mixed feelings about the fall season. Outdoor music festivals (my cocaine) have come to a close, and I start to go into withdrawal. Things are starting to turn brown, and the prospect of putting the bikes into storage is beginning to loom. Perhaps I still harbor gloomy emotional memories of returning to school after a fun summer; I hated most of high school.

However, a long afternoon ride in the country reminded me, today, that the fall is my favorite season to ride. It was a balmy, breezy day, and the leaves were skittering across the road in front of the bike.

In the town of Pompey, I stopped at a homestead on a quiet side road, where the landowner was out in his yard, tinkering with his mower. I asked if I could take a picture of my bike in front of his old silo and superb sumac. At first I thought his response was one of disbelief, but then he smiled, and mentioned that he had an old bike behind the house. Steve, he offered with with a handshake, noted that when his father bought the land in 1949, and it had a large barn attached, but it burned down the day they moved in. They never did discover the source of the fire.

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He went on to say, proudly, that only a couple months ago, he found out that the small rooms in the basement of his early 1800's farmhouse were used in the Underground Railroad.

In Delphi Falls, I stopped at a nicely maintained Meeting House that was built in 1815.

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It had this historical marker;

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I followed a county road that I had never been down before in the town of Elbridge, and just as I thought that the tarvia conditions were beginning to get too primitive for my old bike, I came upon these stone buildings.
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Investigating to get the permission of the owner to take a few pictures, I discovered that he restored old bikes, and he had a cool RD400 to show me, along with many others.

This was, in fact, one of the finest local rides I can remember taking.

There was a moment when I thought, "O.K., if I die right now, it will be just fine."

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Thank you Pete, and Signal.
My error to not mention what the farmowner had. He said he had a '78 Suzuki750 or such. SImply didn't interest me.
But Keith at UTD (I imagine Ken Hanson will know of him) had this RD400
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and a Honda 550, amoung others, including an XT500.
He seems to share an interest in vintage adverts, as I do. From his FB page:

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I failed to see this write up until just now! Another cool road trip! I love the back stories on people you meet along the way.
Dude, your photography is getting better and better. Really outstanding photos and composition. You keep this up you can print your own calendars!
 
What sort of camera are you using Dude?

As Mailman’s said, your photos are so nice and sharp - hard to imagine you are shooting them on a phone camera....
 
What sort of camera are you using Dude?

As Mailman’s said, your photos are so nice and sharp - hard to imagine you are shooting them on a phone camera....
Thanks, tho actually I've always regarded MM's photos as being a quality that I am striving towards.
My earlier photos were from a Canon ftb 35mm, which I used for longer than most folks,
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before moving to a digital, an Olympus camedia C-4000,

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but just recently have been using a pocket-sized Canon ELPH 190.

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so that I can just grab the thing when the occasion arises.
 
Took this one today standing on the hillside where my paternal grandfather is buried. Until maybe ten years ago there was a farmhouse in that area in the foreground. The little barn or shop is still there, sort of. The way out there is ten miles of winding road through this.

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It's a strong spring that comes out of the hill about 1/4 mi to the left and makes a little creek that flows into a dammed area. I never heard of it being stocked, but ppl around here will catch fish at a stocked lake and release them elsewhere, so decades later and nobody fishing it, who knows.
 
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